Blogging for $$$$$: Maybe, Maybe Not
If Technorati was having a difficult time tracking the blogosphere before, things might have become a lot more challenging in the wake of a Business 2.0 story about how blogs have emerged as - gasp - money-making operations. It highlights blogs such as TechCrunch, which is apparently, pulling in $60K a month in advertising, while Boing Boing and PaidContent have ad revenue of more than $1-million a year. I can't help but think that this whole blogging thing could become a little like the Gold Rush where everyone moves to California to start prospecting for riches. Of course, the only people who really made any money from the gold rush were suppliers like Levi Strauss so perhaps this is good news for folks like TypePad, Google, Wordpress and FeedBurner. In terms of blogging for dollars, there are people and networks who will do well given some portion of online ad dollars tsunami will find its way to blogs (some of it through AdSense; some of its sponsorships or banners). For people such as Om Malik and Michael Arrington who are fortunate enough to get enough of a following to attract advertisers, the world is their oyster. I mean, imagine a relatively low-cost business where you hammer out short items featuring ideas/thoughts/news, and have advertisers knocking on your door. For the rest of us, however, blogging will pay for a cup of coffee a day if the AdSense Gods are being kind to us. Then again, how many people realistically believe they're going to get rich blogging? For most of us, it's about non-financial goals such as the freedom to write or brand building. The Business 2.0 story is positive because it will help legitimize blogs as an advertising vehicle rather than being seen as places where teenagers pour out their feelings or frustrated writers rant about their lot. Maybe this will see a trickle down effect for many of us (myself included) producing quality content but getting little or no attention from advertisers. For more thoughts, check out Mathew Ingram, Om Malik and Valley Wag.
August 24th, 2006 at 1:44 pm
Where I am scared about is that this new found business model is going to get so commercial that blogs will start containing other people's ideas to the point of not being their own. Right now people still blog about themselves or their experiences (most of them anyways). But imagine blogs which are made up of other blogs which are made up of other blogs to the point where the blog you are looking at has content that is posted on 100 other blogs.
As long as the ideas and the time is put into writing the content from a 1st person perspective, I am all for making a little money on it. Even if it is kind of like selling yourself and your own thoughts. That is capitalism for you.